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Posted by Tejas Kirodiwal
September 11, 2013
Social media marketing is the best way to reach potential customers all over the world and share promotional messages with millions of people within a few seconds. The reach of social media websites like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter is certainly impressive.
While all of them provide a great platform for marketing, business communication, and branding, Twitter, in particular, excels above others. Twitter is a micro-blogging site that lets you share 140 character-long messages or “tweets” with your followers.
Tweets are like posts on Facebook, but while Facebook allows you to write hundreds of words, Twitter follows the SMS style and restricts users from writing anything beyond 140 characters. Your tweets can include web links and images and when you tweet something, the message shows up on your followers’ feeds.
Tweets are short but great for marketing because they help you share only the relevant message. For example, if you have an eCommerce business, a tweet like “Flat 20% off on apparel till midnight! Visit our site now!” can boost your sales figures instantly. The message is loud and clear for your brand followers.
The follower and following concept of Twitter is also quite revolutionary. Suppose Mr. X likes your company and follows its profile. In that case, Mr. X is your “follower”. On the contrary, if you like Mr. X’s profile and start following him, you will say, “I am “following” Mr. X.”
As a user, you can follow anyone and receive the tweets they share. Remember that the person you are following does not need to follow you back. He may choose to but it’s not mandatory.
There are so many merchants in the market and almost all of them have a Twitter account. So, the question is what special technique can you use to attract Twitter users and increase your number of followers? More importantly, how should you use this platform for online marketing? The following points will help you increase the number of your followers, retain your existing follower and drive quality traffic to your website.
The first thing users would like to know is who you are and what product/services your company offers. Therefore, your corporate profile should reflect your brand persona for clear visual communication. You should use your company’s name as a username because it appears with your tweets and upload the brand logo as a profile picture. Customize the header and background with meaningful graphics for effective branding.
Your profile page must contain all relevant data about your organization. In the “profile bio” section, share brief information about your business and in the “website” section, post your website URL. People love to deal with companies situated in their locality and thus, it’s intelligent to add your business location in the “location” section. A complete profile is always engaging and assures potential clients that they are following a genuine company.
The problem with tweets is that they don’t stay on the followers’ wall for a long time. If you post your tweets when your followers are sleeping, they may never notice the message the next morning. Therefore, write tweets only when the majority of followers are online. This way, you will be able to make sure your voice is heard and it will result in conversions.
What should you post about on Twitter? Try to understand what your customers want to hear and what features of your business you want to promote. You can tweet about recent incidents and use them tactfully to promote your business. For example, an SEO company can tweet “New Panda update is released. Contact us if your site got punished and regain lost SERP ranking.”
You can share promotional messages via tweets but if customers don’t come to your website, the conversion rate will never increase. Therefore, include a link in your tweets to enable followers to directly go to the website. Use a URL shortener service to keep the URL short, because if the URL eats up too many characters, only a few characters will remain for writing your promotional message.
One of the easiest ways to increase customer engagement is by providing them with a route to share your content. Let’s say, you provide website design services and write website design-related articles on your blog. Your Twitter followers will obviously visit your blog to check your writing skills, and if they like it, they will search for a way to share the articles.
Therefore, add a Twitter widget in the blog, so that readers can easily share any content. This way, their friends will also get informed about your business, helping you get more clients without any extra effort.
A picture says a thousand words and immediately grabs viewers’ attention. This innovative social media site lets you share photos with your tweets and you should take benefit of this facility to visually interact with customers and generate curiosity in their minds.
For example, if you are going to launch a new smartphone, you can write “We are going to revolutionize the smartphone business on 25th September” and post a partial photo of the new smartphone to create a buzz in the market. The picture will compel the visitors to take notice of your tweets.
If someone mentions your business in his tweet and is looking for a solution, send him a reply as soon as possible. Unless you keep the current followers happy, you won’t be able to increase the number of followers. Also, respond to people who follow you or favorite your tweets.
The hashtag is a great way to reach a large audience. With the help of hashtags, you can make sure that your tweets are read by those who don’t even follow you yet. For example, let’s say you have an SEO company in New York and post some interesting facts about your company or SEO in general. If you attach #SEO with your tweet, any Twitter user can view your post by searching “#SEO” from their account. Smart use of hashtags is crucial to the popularity of your tweets.
Social media is all about two-way communication and unless you start following others, you will never be able to increase your follower list. There is always some give and take in social media. However, that does not mean you need to follow back everyone. Be choosy and follow those who matter to you.
Are you struggling to get enough followers for your Twitter account? Do you feel that all your tweeting and following is in vain? Or, has any particular tactic helped your rock Twitter? Please share your ideas and experiences in the comments section.
